


Good Times for a Change, or, Five Beds They Made Themselves Lie In

by raedbard



Category: The West Wing
Genre: 1000-5000 Words, 5 Things, Community: tww_minis, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-09-29
Updated: 2009-09-29
Packaged: 2017-10-05 08:36:32
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,210
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/39788
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/raedbard/pseuds/raedbard
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><em>Toby watches him, and wonders why he's even wearing a tie, why he still needs to be buttoned-up and proper, the best-dressed man at the Heartbroken Ball, when they have seen everything of each other and forgotten as much as they learned the first time, and begun again.</em> Five beds Sam and Toby shared over the years.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Good Times for a Change, or, Five Beds They Made Themselves Lie In

**#1: BUS**

 

_Fifteen minutes with you  
Well, I wouldn't say no  
Oh people see no worth in you  
Oh but I do_

 

Sam's breath steams up the window of the campaign bus. Toby watches the condensation creep up the glass, then breaks its patterning when he slams his palm up against the window. January makes his fingertips feel blue, then Sam opens his mouth around Toby's knuckles, and he forgets to feel the cold.

They are getting much too good at slipping out. Toby knows how completely shadows swallow him but he's surprised at Sam, at how willing he is to be swallowed too. He suspects that there are emotions involved, somewhere; he suspects many things. He isn't interested in knowing for sure.

Sam is exhaling in twenty or thirty tiny gasps per minute. Toby feels them as ripples against his chest, vibrations, shivers. These breaths are falling and rising on the window pane like waves. Toby watches them, trying to concentrate. He can't find an ending; there should be no ending.

Sam gives one more breath, louder and heavier than the others, and then a cry.

When Toby said goodnight at the bar there was a look on C.J.'s face. They've talked about these things; they've _done_ this thing. They both understand the inherent emotional brutality of a campaign and where to get the quick fixes. They even had a (clichéd and nowhere near their usual standard, he'd always thought) mantra: any warm body. She knows the look his face gets when he has found one.

She squeezed his arm, and he watched her eyes flick over to Sam adjusting his tie and jacket nervously, running fingers around the neck of a Budweiser bottle.

A broken wave is cooling rapidly over Toby's hand. He wants to find something beautiful in the fall of semen over his fingers, the droplets, the way the liquid clings to his skin and then elongates as it falls, and expands again in a small pool on the floor. It is difficult; it is hard to allow for specialness in what he thought would be a tired and emotionless fuck in the back of a bus. It is hard to allow for the feeling of Sam's ribcage expanding -- slower now, and calmer -- under the bar of his own forearm.

_Just be careful, amigo._

You're giving me a sexual health class now?

I think it might be too late for you, Toby, but we can save the boy.

Your stand-up routine still needs work.

You'll find that I can take you any time.

I'm leaving now.

Toby -- really. Be careful with him.

He has no sharp edges. And will be back before curfew.

She kissed his cheek. It still burns.

Toby is surprised by how potent it feels to come inside Sam: a star bursting, scattering him, then reversing its explosion, pulling him back together and winking out, all in the space of a few short breaths.

He rests for a second, with his forehead against the collar of Sam's shirt. The sweat has gathered at the nape of Sam's neck and has pulled his hair into a dozen slick, skinny points. Toby licks the skin there. It tastes sweet.

"Toby?"

"Hmm?"

"How late is it?"

"A quarter after ten."

Sam sighs. "They'll be back soon."

"Yeah."

"We should clean up," he says, looking around for something to wipe his hands on. "Then sleep?"

"Sleep?"

"You don't want to sleep?"

"Together?"

"Make it look like we fell asleep writing."

"Together?"

Sam smiles. Toby has never kissed him, never initiated a kiss, but it seems already like Sam has kissed _him_ many times. They feel like kisses he is slowly learning to be unable to do without; kisses that trap him, because underneath the tar and the whiskey and the soon-to-be-broken marriage, his heart is still wild, still the kind of beast that responds to violence and cages and soft white hands. Toby tries to make his eyes too hot to look into, but Sam's own eyes are apparently fireproof.

He isn't asleep when he hears the tread of C.J.'s heels come down the bus aisle. He opens his eyes and finds hers, glinting just past the shadows of Sam's head, which is resting on his shoulder. She smirks, taps the side of her nose with one forefinger. He smiles, and closes his eyes again.

 

**#2: COUCH**

 

_Sweet dreams are made of this  
Who am I to disagree?_

 

Sam has a knack for sleeping, once he gets started. He can do it anywhere, seemingly. Exhaustion curls him in on himself, limbs suddenly having too many joints; he does not gangle, even on a government salary's couch, but folds up neatly, almost an ouroboros. His skin looks pale, like too much cream poured into cheap coffee. His eyes and fists are shut tight. Toby finds that he needs to watch him sleeping, checking him continually to be sure that he is breathing; he is so silent.

There is a shine coming off his shoes: the reflection of Senator Carson's latest attempt to gas the highest bodies of the United States government to death with his own self-importance. Toby can see the blue of the guy's tie flickering over the place where Sam's toes are, beneath the astonishingly shiny leather.

Toby scans his eyes over the arms of the couch. In the half-light it looks a more comfortable embrace than he has ever found it to be himself. Sam is squeezing the black and white cushion in his arms. It is this which brings out Toby's smile.

The chair by the desk is heavy, but he bought it because it is deceptively easy to shift around the room -- the better to intimidate visitors with. A good shove gets it flush to the arm of the couch. His feet still rest easily on the coffee table. His hand is an afterthought: resting around the curve of Sam's ankle, where the cuff of his pants leg has ridden up, exposing the elastic top of one sock, and warm skin. Toby slips a finger underneath the elastic, rubs the first knuckle over Sam's ankle. Sam twitches in his sleep, and his fingers dig deeper into a white quarter of the black and white cushion.

"Toby?" he says, his words muffled by the cushion and his fists, "Do you want to maybe not paw at me while I'm trying to sleep?"

"You were already sleeping."

"You woke me."

"You have a problem?"

"You were pawing at me!"

"You could have just ignored me!"

"Ignore you until the point where my pants are ripped from my legs as I sleep? No, I thought I'd pass on that one."

Toby smiles, and removes his finger from the sock elastic with a pop.

"Ow."

"You're over-estimating the power your legs have over me, Sam."

"Oh yeah. Sure. You're powerless, my friend."

"Against your pasty calves? Yeah. Powerless would definitely be my word of choice."

"I was hoping you'd think of something more interesting more quickly."

"Something involving your legs?"

"No, Toby."

"Something higher up?"

"Yes, Toby."

"I thought you wanted to sleep."

"I slept."

"And you're awake now?"

"Yes."

Toby smiles at him: a dark smile, that he hopes gives nothing away. "Okay."

"Okay?"

"Yeah."

"You know, sometimes, I don't know why -- "

It takes under a second to drop to his knees beside the couch, and put his hand on Sam's chest, pushing him down against the cushions. His mouth is open, wet, tasting muddily of sleep and confusion. It is surprisingly easy to multitask the undoing of Sam's shirt buttons (only getting him the clean cotton of Sam's t-shirt as a reward) and the kiss, which he tries to make dazzling; enchanting enough to make up for the pain in his knees and the headache he knows Sam will have now, because he always gets headaches from sleeping on Toby's couch. It turns out to be more prelude than symphony, but that is enough for Sam. He looks up at Toby, once he has broken away, and he looks like he always does -- his eyes having become little essays on lust, and on devotion. Toby looks away.

"Hey," Sam says, quietly. He strokes Toby's beard. "That's not half bad."

"An eight point-five?"

"At least."

Toby kisses him again and Sam grins. "Did we finish the speech, I forget?"

"No," Toby says. Their brows are touching, and Sam's hand is holding on to Toby's shoulder, tight, so that he can easily pull him forward again whenever he chooses, Toby guesses. Sam does so like to feel in control. Sam presses a kiss to the side of Toby's mouth then says,

"I guess we should do that, then."

"I guess."

"_You_ could sleep."

"On that?"

"Sure. It's deceptively comfortable."

"You were complaining about the brain tumour it's supposedly given you last week."

"That's an exaggeration, Toby."

Toby rolls his eyes.

"C'mon. Take a nap." Sam's fingers pull at the hair at Toby's temples, straightening out the kink of one strand then letting it spring back, then pushing it back behind Toby's ear. "I won't watch."

"Yeah?"

"I won't!"

"Why don't I have any confidence in your assurances?"

"I've seen you sleep before, Toby."

"You've never sat and watched me try to get to sleep, Sam."

"I like looking at you."

"And indeed, who could blame you, but it still freaks me out!"

Sam laughs, almost into Toby's mouth. He pulls on Toby's tie, undoing it, and two of Toby's shirt buttons. Then he pushes Toby away and sits up.

"How about I go and throw some water on my face and get some more coffee, and when I come back you'll be all set. I can close my eyes when I come back in if it'll help."

"What, I don't get a bedtime story?"

"If you like. You prefer tax rebates or childhood asthma?"

"Go away."

"I'm going, I'm going."

Toby waits until Sam is almost out of the door before he reclaims his own couch, still warm from Sam's body.

"Lie down. Make yourself comfortable."

Toby just glares at him. Sam grins.

"Lights out now, young man."

"Go _away_, Sam."

"I'll be back in a while."

"Yeah, yeah."

The click of the door opening again makes only a dim impression on Toby's sleep. He opens his eyes but doesn't seem very much, only a blur of white shirt and a short blast of cold air. Before he lay down he draped his jacket over the back of the chair and he is aware enough to understand that it is this that Sam covers him with, and that it is Sam's hand that is warm and gentle on his arm.

He thinks he hears, "Goodnight, boss," as he goes back towards sleep again.

 

**#3: HOTEL, V.1**

 

_it's bad news   
I don't blame you   
I do the same thing   
I get lonely too_

 

"She's pregnant?"

"Yes."

He smiles; Toby wonders how he does it, how he never seems to forget the trick of being happy for other people.

"That's great, Toby." He grins, like someone's fingers pulled his lips apart. Toby stares at him and swallows. It's gruesome, like all the rest of his life right now. Sam continues, "I like the idea of you as a daddy."

"Sam."

"I do. It makes a good picture."

"Just don't get carried away, all right?"

"I have no idea what you mean," he says. The grin has calmed down into a quiet smile now, brighter though than the sky outside the window. It's the last day before they have to set off for debate camp and the weather doesn't seem to like their chances much.

Toby takes a breath. He wishes it didn't feel so _womanly_ to pull up the sheets over his belly and chest, because he hates having this conversation in nothing but his skin, but trying to hide that from Sam is worse than stupid.

"I, uh, I wanted you to know first."

"In case my game face in front of the others isn't quite as good as you need it to be?" he says. He's still smiling, and there is nothing bitter in his voice, but something in his mouth has become pale and twisted down, like wire.

"Sam -- "

"No, I get it. Good call."

"Sam -- "

"And it's twins?"

Toby sighs; the only protest he's prepared to register. "Yes."

"Boy and girl, or -- ?"

"We don't know. It's ... it's early to say. I think. She doesn't tell me everything."

Sam nods. "Yeah."

"Sam -- "

"It's fine, Toby. I get it. I know ... I know how you feel about her."

Toby blows all the air out of his lungs, and falls back against the pillow on his side of the bed. He lies straight, with his shoulder and arm touching Sam's hip. He lets the sheet fall off him, trying not to mind the cold air on his skin, and shifts his body so the sheet makes a diagonal across his hips and left thigh.

"Do you?" he says. "You want to enlighten me?"

Sam chuckles; it's believable so long as Toby keeps on staring at the ceiling. Sam stretches out beside him. Toby thinks he is looking up at the ceiling too, but he isn't going to turn his head and check.

"You still wore your wedding ring until a few months ago."

"It's possible I just forgot."

"Toby."

Toby sighs again. "It really doesn't mean that much."

He feels the mattress shift and hears it creak as Sam turns to look at him.

"Apart from symbolism, apart from the reason all men wear wedding rings, apart from the way you use it to tell people that you're ... "

"What?"

"Taken," he says.

"Sam -- "

"Yeah, I know. We've talked about this -- or rather, we haven't because you just don't have conversations like this one. I know. I knew what I was signing up for. I've actually done all this before."

It's easier, somehow, to give in and turn and look at him. He still doesn't look angry, or sad. Toby imagines long-ago conversations Sam had with himself, in his apartment in D.C. which is always cold, in the bathroom, standing in the shower with his forehead pressed up against the shiny white tile, making promises he was incapable of keeping.

"I understand that you don't feel that way about me," he says, when Toby says nothing. "And I can play shock and awe. I won't let you down."

He still moves into the caress when Toby reaches out to touch his shoulder. He's cold, cold enough to be shivering.

"You've ... you've done all this before?"

"There was a guy. In college."

"A guy?"

"Yeah."

"Okay."

"Apparently I'm attractive to the wrong kind of partners irrespective of sex." He says it like a joke, but it fizzes on Toby's teeth like the bass line of loud music he didn't want to hear in the first place.

"Who was he?"

Sam laughs soundlessly. "My professor."

When Toby raises his eyebrows, Sam only smiles and says, "I like older men," and Toby assimilates those words like a punch to the gut. "And my father didn't understand me," Sam continues. "So really this was all a foregone conclusion. You shouldn't feel bad."

They have the room for the whole night, so the only thing left to do is sleep. Toby is surprised that the talent for devastating honesty which is Sam's secret weapon has not impaired his deputy's ability to create a little intimacy for himself. He is breathing slowly and quietly with his forehead pressed against Toby's breastbone and his hands cradling themselves under his chin. Toby made himself lie facing him: it seemed like the least cowardly thing. He cannot sleep; he is playing a mental game of Concentration, in the dark, with all the images of himself Sam has thrown down on the table between them. He can't find the pairs, but he can't stop either.

 

**#4: HOTEL, V.2**

 

_I'm not who I used to be   
No longer easy on the eyes  
But these wrinkles masterfully disguise   
The youthful boy below   
who turned your way and saw   
Something he was not looking for_

 

It's only when he's in the middle of taking them off that he realises the contrast between their clothes: Sam in old blue jeans and a plain white shirt tucked into them, the sleeves rolled up into perfect bands just below his elbows, his tie the colour of the sea in winter in California; his own suit a brown the kindest adjective for which is drab, his orange shirt because it was the first clean thing that came to hand, brown again for the tie but a little darker, a colour that disappears into the eye and cannot afterwards be remembered.

How apt, he thinks, sourly, as he takes the top button of Sam's jeans between his fingers and pulls.

He called, a few weeks ago, and Toby figured there was no way it could make anything worse. But he was wrong.

He looks older these days; more man about him than boy, though for Toby the ratios will always skew a certain way; a way that displeases Sam. In any case, he has put on some weight (mostly in the form of muscle), and nurtured his tan, and allowed the axles and bolts of his joints to loosen a little so that he no longer seems to walk like an affronted robot. He doesn't look _happy_ exactly, but Toby isn't sure he'd recognise that if he saw it.

Over the phone his voice sounded the same though: the most Waspish voice in California, tuned to perfect sympathy, playing the little song Toby knows as love. It made a scrape of desire in his belly, like a violin, like a klezmer waltz -- what you play when you're laughing and watching everything fall apart at the same time. It was snowing in D.C. that week, which felt right to Toby, and when he'd hung up the phone he'd gone out into the street and walked around a little, without his gloves and scarf, getting cold, which felt right too.

Today it is bright and he is feeling the cold that Sam doesn't seem able to. His fingers are shaking, a little, as he fiddles with zippers and more buttons, as he gets his hands trapped on Sam's thighs, as he struggles to remember how they used to do this.

He flushes hot when he opens his mouth around the head of Sam's cock. This too seems appropriate. It's not so much that he doesn't like giving head, or that he finds it humiliating, only that he knows it wasn't this way before.

Sam doesn't seem to notice anyway: he stumbles against the side of the bed, gasping, with his hands on Toby's shoulders, fingernails long enough to hurt. He sits down heavily. His legs are wide open, and Toby expects the next thing he'll do is lie back on the bed, with his arms outstretched, making little eddies in the sheets with his fingers. He expects the happy medium between the abandonment to pleasure that would have been Sam with his hands behind his head, ignoring the guy on the other end of his dick -- very un-Seaborn-esque -- and what actually happens.

Sam opens his legs wider and balances his hips right on the edge of the bed. He puts his hands on his own thighs first, and then on the sides of Toby's neck, over his ears, into his hair. He pulls, hard enough to make Toby gag but he doesn't seem to notice that. Toby starts again, deliberately going deep enough this time that his nose is pressed up into Sam's pubic hair and the soft skin there, which seems fragile enough for the lightest pressure of his teeth to rip. Sam makes a sound in the back of his throat that sounds like a swallow and a moan at the same time. Then he folds up, suddenly, leaning forward, reaching all the way around Toby's shoulders, pressing his fingers into Toby's vertebrae, one by one, then hugging him hard. It's impossible to keep on giving the blowjob, but it doesn't matter, because as Toby opens his mouth and pulls away and Sam's cock brushes against the line of his beard, Sam comes in frantic spurts with his sharp fingernails bedded in Toby's skin.

Toby remembers this part. His face is pressed up against Sam's belly, where he can feel every breath being blown and broken. Prince Rupert drops of affection, that he shattered because he wanted to. He remembers that it used to make him feel powerful: just the small victories of fluctuations in the patterns of oxygen; just the little notices the body leaves to spite the mind that wanted the information they proffer kept secret; his understanding that he was loved, but that he didn't understand why.

Toby's own breathing is heavy, though he knows he isn't even fully erect yet. He uses Sam's knees to help himself up. He wipes sweat off his forehead. He looks down to see Sam gazing up at him. He remembers this part too.

"I really missed you," Sam says.

"When's your flight?" Toby says, because he can't help it.

Sam's expression is fragile, for a second, before he covers it up with a smile that isn't surprised and isn't really amused either.

"Tomorrow. In the afternoon."

Toby nods, once. "Okay."

"They won't miss you?"

Toby surprised by just how bleak his own laugh sounds when it reverberates around the room. He reaches out and presses the back of his hand to Sam's brow, like taking his temperature, not sure why he's doing it but to touch someone else who doesn't belong here anymore.

"No," he says quietly. "They won't miss me."

 

**#5: HOME**

 

_Good times for a change  
See the luck I've had  
Could make a good man turn bad_

So please, please, please  
Let me, let me, let me  
Let me get what I want  
This time

 

"Hey."

"Hey, Toby."

"How you doing?"

Sam lets out a long sigh. It rattles over the phone.

"Let's see -- my bill is getting laughed out of the Senate, my son isn't talking to me, which is difficult for a hyperactive five year old but he manages it, I have a really nasty case of 'flu, oh, and my divorce papers came today."

"So not your best day ever then?"

Sam's laugh crackles in the receiver. "No, not my best day ever."

"Can you make some time?"

"I think if you wait a short while you'll find that I have nothing but time."

"Sam."

"Yeah. I'll be there."

"Okay. Well, I'll see you soon."

"Yeah."

"Sam?"

"What?"

"Pack light, okay?"

"Toby ... is this, is this you telling me not to worry? Ah, packing -- baggage -- emotional problems -- my impending nervous breakdown? And I should leave all that in D.C.?"

"I was concerned that the metaphor was too vague, and hoped that you'd perhaps realise its meaning quietly in an hour or two from now, but I see I needn't have worried."

"Well, I have a PhD in Ziegler. I could probably teach a class. But then I am special."

"You are indeed."

"I'll see you soon, Toby."

"Yeah."

Toby has always thought that the fundamentalists' updated guidebook tour of Hell should contain snapshots of a place that bears an eerie resemblance to JFK airport, but his strong desire to get out of there at least seems to sharpen his eyes. He finds Sam in the crowd easily -- hauling one holdall, looking grey around the eyes, and in need of a haircut. Toby takes the bag out of his hands and gets no protest from Sam. As they walk towards the exit, Sam's shoulder bumps a little against Toby's own.

He doesn't speak in the back of the cab, and he just shakes his head 'no' when Toby suggests that they seek out some overpriced Manhattan coffee somewhere. He doesn't even smile. But he does, happily, wait until they get back to Toby's apartment before he falls apart completely.

"I'm sorry," he says, from between his fingers, sitting on Toby's couch, with tears all over his hands. "I know this is probably mortifying for you."

"No," Toby says, quiet, trying to be -- trying to be a good friend and wondering if the effort negates the name.

"I guess I didn't pack light enough."

"Sam -- "

"It's okay. I'll be ... Just give me a minute, I'll be okay."

"D'you ... wanna talk?"

It's like someone has smudged the not-yet-dry oil paints of his portrait when he looks up; his face waiting to be remade. He still laughs, and it makes something in Toby's belly burn bright as magnesium.

"You want to talk?"

"I thought ... I -- look, I can have these conversations, you know. I have done this before."

"Your credentials are not in doubt, Toby."

"So. Talk to me."

He smiles, and this too trails off into a smudge.

"What can I say? You know all the stats. You know what's gone wrong. You could probably have told me it would. That actually wouldn't surprise me. You have this oracular thing sometimes, you know."

"Give me your hand, I'll tell your fortune."

Sam smiles again, and puts out his hand. Toby runs his thumb over the lines he finds there and has never had time to learn before, even though he has tried to learn every inch. He kisses the pad of Sam's hand, where his palm joins to his fingers. Sam watches him and his face doesn't give anything away.

"I thought we weren't going to do this anymore."

"Sometimes I am weak and tempted. What can I say?"

"I don't really want a pity fuck right now, Toby."

"Okay, well. Let me know."

Sam smiles, properly this time. He wipes his knuckles over his eyes and adjusts his tie. Toby watches him, and wonders why he's even wearing a tie, why he still needs to be buttoned-up and proper, the best-dressed man at the Heartbroken Ball, when they have seen everything of each other and forgotten as much as they learned the first time, and begun again.

"I wish I'd stayed," he says, staring a spot a few inches above Toby's shoulder.

"In California?"

"In D.C.. The first time. I wish you hadn't all told me to go."

"I didn't tell you to go," Toby says, putting the lightest stress he can manage on the second word.

"No, _you_ didn't. But then, with you it's hard to tell."

Toby figures that the night your ex-Deputy comes over to cry on your couch is as good a time as any to start being honest, so he says, "I didn't tell you to go because I didn't want you to."

"I don't think anyone _wanted_ \-- "

"They didn't have anything to miss."

"Toby ... "

"I didn't know until you'd gone. Just that I didn't want to let you go for anything less than something that would keep you in exactly the same place."

"California doesn't really count as the same place."

"But the California 47th does. A seat in Congress. A place in D.C. A number I could call to get you into my office."

"Toby."

"I just didn't notice."

"You were in love with Andy."

"Yeah."

"And you thought, you really thought -- _we_ all thought it too -- that it'd work out. Somehow."

"It didn't."

"You can't really blame me for that, Toby."

"I could try to think something up. If you give me a minute."

"Funny."

"Thank you."

"And, now I'm there, and you're not."

"Yeah."

Sam laughs. "You know, it's so weird. Just me and Charlie. Not even Josh anymore."

"I'm not coming back, Sam."

"Actually, I was thinking more that I would quit."

"_What_?"

"I'm done, Toby. There are other ways to do ... what we came here -- there -- to do."

"Okay, allowing the initial idiotic premise, would you like to enlighten me as to your alternative avenues of employment?"

"I kinda thought I would write, actually."

"O-kay."

"I mean, it's not like revenue is an issue here so if I'm a slow learner then I can afford a few false starts."

"False starts?"

"Well, you know, if ... "

"If you're perhaps not the immediate publishing sensation you are almost certain to become?"

"Well, thank you, but -- "

"You know, sometimes I really wonder what the hell I did to your self-confidence."

"Well, you hired me and that was fine, very good for the ego, but then you spent four years ripping me to pieces. However, I wasn't fooled."

"Fooled?"

"I knew you liked me."

"Yes. Well. I won't shatter your illusion tonight when you're ... "

"A miserable, weeping wreck?"

"I'd have gone for an actual metaphor, but yes, if you like."

"I wanted to write with you."

Toby's smile is slow, crystalline. It stays on his face longer than he expects it to.

"What are we writing?"

"Allowing the initial idiotic premise?"

"Allowing that, yes. What are we writing?"

"Comment? Textbooks? How not to run a White House?"

"Funny."

"Whatever we _want_, Toby."

"You want to write novels, don't you?"

"Possibly."

Toby shakes his head. "That wouldn't work."

"How about we make money off the other thing and then I write the novels and you watch me write them over my shoulder and tell me what I'm doing wrong."

"I have a job, Sam."

"And you look so happy to be grading papers and making sure every single kid who passes through one of your classes loses their A average."

"What's the book about?"

"What?"

"The novel you've already started, what's it about?"

He smiles, and his eyes are suddenly warm. "I'll show you. But you have to agree."

"I'm not bargaining with you, Sam."

"One month trial."

Toby laughs, with his hand in front of his mouth. This makes Sam grin.

"I really have missed you," he says.

Toby nods, a fraction. "Yeah."

"I'll show you the thing. Tomorrow. Or, maybe Thursday. I thought we should do something fun tomorrow."

"Fun?"

Sam holds his hands up. "We can argue about an agreed definition of fun and talk about the other thing tomorrow. Or you can do what I imagine you'll do anyway and search in my briefcase for the manuscript tomorrow morning before I'm up. It's all in there."

"Okay, okay."

"Just, think about it."

"I will think about it."

"Thanks, boss."

"Bed?"

"Yeah."

"I promise not to try anything."

"I wouldn't mind a little ... something."

"Shut up and get up there."

He sleeps the same as always, still like a little boy, though he is now almost fifty years old. Toby finds that a hollow that has gone unnoticed in his side for better than a decade has just opened up again. Sam fits his head into it, with his hands fisted under his chin, the knuckles pressed up against Toby's ribs.

The bed has always been too big for one man. Toby wonders if this has a significance he had previously overlooked, then decides that he doesn't care if it does. He fits his hand around the shape of Sam's head, rustles Sam's hair with his fingers, and closes his eyes, and sleeps.


End file.
